Using the Sound Rail

The Sound Rail, specifically its crown,  is designed to engage with the top edges of instrument strings, to produce musical sounds and effects.  Numerous options exist for using it, both in terms of the playing techniques and the varying number and identities of the instrument strings involved.  

Each option requires that  the Sound Rail be positioned so that it is facing toward the string assembly, with the length dimension of the Main Body more or less perpendicular to the said assembly.  The angle of the sides of the Main Body relative to the string assembly can vary depending upon the technique, and personal preference, but it mostly ranges between 45 and 90 degrees. This positioning of the Sound Rail can be reached from either the front, or the rear, playing position.  

A musician can easily and quickly switch back and forth between using the Playing Tip and the Sound Rail in both playing positions, as is presented in the next two sections.  

Using the Sound Rail in the Front Playing Position

In the front playing position, the switch from using the Playing Tip to using the Sound Rail is an easy maneuver, performed in approximately a second.  The slide carousel below is a "digital flipbook" — by rapidly clicking through the photographs, one gets a visual tutorial for the said switch.  

In more precise anatomical terms, however, we can describe the switch in this manner:   it involves a major forearm movement, with minor, if any, changes in the configuration of the fingers, hand, and wrist.

In the normal tip-playing position, the forearm is semi-pronated, with the palm facing medially and the index finger superior to the other fingers. To use the Sound Rail, the forearm must pronate much further so that the palm faces laterally and the index finger is inferior to the other fingers. 

This pronounced rotation of the forearm, equivalent to grasping a door knob and turning it counterclockwise 180 degrees,  positions the Sound Rail to face the instrument strings, with the sides of the Main Body at an angle anywhere between 90 and 45 degrees to the strings, depending upon the musician’s preference.  From here, the musician can direct it onto the top edges of  one or more of the instrument strings to perform the various techniques that are detailed in an upcoming section. 

Using the Sound Rail in Rear Playing Position

Sound Rail Techniques 

The five major techniques that I have developed for use with the Sound Rail are described below —hopefully you testers will come up with even more!  I will present them individually here, but in a live playing situation  there's numerous  combinations of using the techniques in rhythmic sequence.  Furthermore, as added variation, one has the option of how many strings to engage when using any particular one.

1.  Thrusting/Bouncing From a Distance.  

Starting from a noticeable distance away from the strings, let's say, ranging from  .25 inches to several inches, one thrusts the Sound Rail  upon the top edges of strings.  This can be done using various amounts of force, and at various angles to the string assembly.  It might be just a single strike, followed by returning to using a Playing Tip, or it could be a series of strikes in succession.  

The number of strings involved can vary from one to six, depending mostly upon:  a.  how the sides of the Main Body are oriented relative to the string assembly (see the  upcoming section Influence of Sound Rail Size and Shape  Upon String Engagement) and b. the musician's preferences. (Notably, the length of the Sound Rail in the two smaller sizes of the 6ePick is too short to allow for the striking of all six strings simultaneously). 

This technique sometimes takes the form of "bouncing" on the string assembly - a succession of strikes in a rhythmic pattern - which can last perhaps across a full chord progression, or even an entire song.   

This technique can be performed using both the front and the rear playing positions.

2.  Push and Release. 

Instead of striking forcibly upon the string assembly, one can gently place the Sound Rail against it and push.  Notably, this occurs with no or minimal sound being generated. The downward pushing continues until it is too difficult to push any further, at which point one pulls the 6ePick  rapidly away,  thus releasing the strings and causing them to vibrate simultaneously and resonate a musical sound. 

This technique can be used to sound all six strings (with the same exception as above pertaining to the two smaller sizes of the 6ePick), or various subgroups, by using targeted placement of the Sound Rail .  Again, this technique is suitable for both the front and the rear playing positions.

3.  Slide. 

As a third technique, one can direct the Sound Rail to strike upon the fretboard, at various points along it, and upon various combinations of strings, and then slide along the strings and over one or more frets.  This technique is akin to the use of a conventional guitar slide, and can produce interesting slide-like sounds.  

In my experimentation it is best to do this while holding a chord shape with the fretting hand, and then striking the strings with considerable force, and sliding the Sound Rail rapidly along the strings and frets.  Otherwise,  the sound effect is weak and quickly dissipates (at least with my acoustic guitar).   It works best to target a smaller number of adjacent strings, rather than trying to engage all of them at once.   

While this technique can be performed using either playing position, it is much easier to do, and can be done comfortably along a greater portion of the neck, using the front playing position (although various degrees of upper arm movement are necessary as one strikes the further areas of the  fretboard). 

4.   Sawing.

A fourth technique, labelled here as "sawing", begins with the Sound Rail positioned near the string assembly, then brought into contact with it, using varying degrees of force, and drawn across the strings in a direction perpendicular to the long axis of the strings.  This action is akin to a violinist drawing a bow across the strings of his/her instrument. 

This is done using either a single direction stroke (from high strings to low strings, or vice versa) or a back and forth "sawing" motion, or some combination thereof.  In all cases, a large portion of the Sound Rail comes into contact with the strings, which is to say that multiple strings, up to all six, are being contacted at the same time.  

Usually the entire Sound Rail is slightly lifted away from the strings after each stroke, so that they can sound, and then it is placed back in contact for the next pass across the strings.  It is possible, however, to perform the "sawing" by keeping the Sound Rail continuously upon the strings - this produces a more scratchy sound effect.  Again, this technique is applicable for both the front and the rear playing positions.

5.  Raking.

 The final technique is a modified form of "sawing" which is labelled here as "raking", and can be performed only when using the rear playing position.  It differs from "sawing" in that only a limited portion of the Sound Rail is employed—just the end of it which is located adjacent to the rear Playing Tip.  Also, the top edge of the Playing Tip itself can come into play in this technique.  Click your way through Digital Flipbook #3 below to see how to perform the raking technique.

Here's an anatomical description of the process:  to start, the hand is orientated such that the end of the Sound Rail above the rear Playing Tip is positioned above one of the lower strings.  The said end, including possibly some portion of the edge of the Playing Tip, is then struck down upon that string, and then rapidly and sequentially drawn across the top surface of each succeeding string until all desired strings have been hit, which in most cases would be all of the strings.  

This is done using a raking action,  by moving the four fingers simultaneously from the closed fist configuration to one in which all of them are approximately 70 percent extended, all the while keeping the Main Body of the 6ePick firmly pressed between the index and middle fingers.  This action is akin to the movement of the fingers when one shifts from a closed fist configuration to making a “stop” gesture.  A modification of this raking technique involves targeting and sequentially striking a select fewer number of adjacent strings.

Digital Flipbook # 3

The following Digital Flipbook visually demonstrates the raking 

technique used in the rear playing position.

Influence of Sound Rail Size and Shape  Upon String Engagement

As noted in the above discussions, in some cases not all six strings of an instrument can be engaged by a given Sound Rail using some of the techniques described above.  Here we go into details about this situation:

In the Anatomy of the 6ePick section of the Site Menu, we learned that the  length of the Sound Rail crown varies depending upon the size of the 6ePick Main Body in question.  Now, we can further state that for all sizes, except for the Small Size and the Small/Medium Size, this length is equal to, or greater than, the distance between the first and sixth string on a conventional guitar.  This  suggests that one could strike all six strings at once by thrusting the Sound Rail at a 90 degree angle to the string assembly (see Figure 1).   But, importantly, this is not the case, due to the fact that in side view the crown  is slightly convexly curved (to match the underlying surface of the Main Body),  so in reality less than six strings can be engaged simultaneously with a true vertical thrust.   

In the case of a Medium Size 6ePick, for example, only four strings can be contacted with this orientation of the crown (see Figure 2).   The identity of these four strings depends upon where the Sound Rail is brought down upon the string assembly: it can be the lower four strings, the middle four strings, or the higher four strings. 

If one wishes to engage all six strings at once, three options present themselves:  (1). First, continuing with the case above, one can use a larger amount of force in the vertical downward striking, such that shortly after striking the middle four initial strings, those strings flex downward, now exposing the top of the outermost string on each side of the assembly.  As such, these two tops are then brought into contact with the downward-thrusting Sound Rail. In this scenario, of course, the six strings are not sounding simultaneously, but it is just a matter of milliseconds before all six strings are struck.  This is especially true if a considerable amount of force is being applied.  

(2).  Instead of striking forcibly upon  the string assembly, one can use the Push and Release technique detailed in an earlier section, by gently pushing downward, initially engaging the crown with the four middle strings, but soon thereafter contacting the other two as the downward push continues. The downward pushing on the strings continues up to the point where it is too uncomfortable or difficult to push any further, at which point one pulls the 6ePick  rapidly upward,  thus releasing the strings and causing them to vibrate simultaneously and produce a musical sound. This same technique can be used to sound smaller groupings of the six strings, most commonly, the four middle ones, the lower two or three, or the upper two or three strings, but to do so successfully requires targeted and careful direction of the Sound Rail. 

(3). Thirdly, and this works only with the front playing position, one can adjust the angle of the sides of the Main Body relative to the string assembly to an approximate 45 degree angle (see Figure 3). At that angle all six strings can be contacted at once due to the side of the crown not possessing a convexly curved shape like that of the top of the crown (see Figure 4 and  Slide Carousel below). This actually is an easier maneuver than using the 90 degree striking angle in this playing position, since it requires less pronation of the forearm.  

The reason this maneuver can not be performed when using the rear playing position is that the dorsal surface of the medial phalanx of one or more of the fingers (the said fingers being  flexed into a loose fist) comes into contact with instrument strings at any angle less than approximately 90 degrees.  It physically is not possible to turn the sound rail at a 45 degree angle to the string assembly since the said portions of the fingers will hit the strings.